Last night, on the advice of podmate Rebecca (the other “old lady” in our two-house ecopod with four young people in their mid-20s) — here we are two weeks ago, following one of our weekly garden work parties —
— I started to watch Grace and Frankie, the story of two eldering women who don’t like each other much. Grace is uptight, perfectly coiffed, alcoholic; Frankie a gauzy, frizzie-haired old hippie into gongs, bells, meditation, and psychedelics. In the first episode, while out to a fancy lunch with their lawyer-partner husbands, the women discover that the husbands, who have been secretly in love for 20 years, are going to divorce them and marry each other. “Because we can get married now!” exclaims Frankie’s forever boyish husband (played by Sam Waterston) while camera pans to Martin Sheed, who plays Grace’s somewhat squishy alpha husband, looking on in disdain. (The men are especially deft in portraying a homosexual couple who have patterned their roles to mimic heterosexual ones.) You can imagine the carnage that follows.
Then there’s the very next scene, where Frankie, and Grace inadvertently, drink peyote tea at night on the beach in front of the very fancy California beach home still owned jointly by the two couples. Again, imagine! (Or better: remember!)
But geez, Jane, did you have to go and get your face “done”? It sure looks like it. And geez, everybody in on this production, did it have to be about rich people?
At any rate, the series looks promising. And a very different alternative life from what we are fashioning here, an intergenerational frisson that is sometimes difficult for this old hippie who likes to get to bed early, but after the September 10th evening shown in the photo below, by Steve Cox, they agreed to stop all drumming by 10 p.m. (In fact, at our pod meeting this week, we decided to make a sign to that effect, so everybody can see it and nobody has to act like “the heavy.”) The acoustic music doesn’t carry, but drums sure do.
I admit, a part of me wishes I had stayed up to listen to that evening’s music, by I’m told, some of the best folk musicians in Bloomington.
Our next Community Dinner on the patio is planned for tomorrow evening, 6:30 p.m., to feature Indian food, headed up by podmate Bradley as chief chef. (I’m contributing Indian carrot pudding). The Thursday after that, squash recipes (since there’s still a lot of squash in the garden), headed up by yours truly. Hope I can carry it off! Locals, join us! Not a potluck, though you can bring a donation to help pay for food if you are so moved.
